


Enigma

by oxymoronic



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Dark, Fic Exchange, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronic/pseuds/oxymoronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working to impress Lord Coward is Henry's constant goal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enigma

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at LJ [here](http://blackwoodcoward.livejournal.com/25953.html).
> 
> Written as part of the [blackwoodcoward](http://blackwoodcoward.livejournal.com/) fic exchange for the prompt: "There was more to Blackwood's motivation of taking over the world. Coward suggested it and Blackwood is totally in love with Coward/willing to do anything for him, including this."
> 
> Canon character death, vague reference to violence. Nothing in this is unrequited, though it may seem that way.

It is the summer of 1883, and Henry is giddy on the fumes of his own success. The party is being held in his own name – scarcely into his third decade and a seat in the Lords, and his father is so very proud. He’s assaulted by a plethora of famous names and faces two minutes from stepping into the parlour, a glass of whiskey pushed in hand, the other shook sycophantically by ecstatic men he’s never met before in his life.

He reaches the window, and Henry longs to step into the bright, clean garden. His father’s man still hangs on his shoulder, and he leans across for the final introduction; “Lord Coward, Home Secretary.” Coward had been inattentive, absently staring out of the window, his disinterested eyes occasionally skimming the room for something entertaining, and he turns with the same offhanded boredom; the expression fails, changes. A vague smile appears on his face as his eyes come alight; _go on_ , they demand.

_Impress me._

Henry’s heart jumps between his teeth.

 

 

Henry, like every politician, dreams of power; his lust for it crawls along his skin, throws him violently between consuming dedication and melancholic apathy. He dreams of an England – of a world – ruled by what is Right, and Fair, and Just; he sees Inequality and he despairs, and knows, with the _right_ man in power, so much injustice could just be swept away, and he, like every politician, believes himself to be the only true candidate for such authority. But Henry lacks both ally and affability, and finds himself voiceless and infuriated in a sea of obstinate and callous politicians.

Coward understands men. He has a rare perspicacity, a talent to identify and advertise to the greatest lust of every man he ever meets. His ambition is a sly one; he understands quite clearly that the man on the Commons’ floor with all the words in hand is infinitely superior to the man in front of the podium who purely has the audacity to say them. Henry, without knowing it, finds himself in lust with Coward’s geniality; his casual capacity to snare the loyalty of anyone he sees fit; the congenial way in which complete strangers shake his hand, decided with one look that he is their compatriot.

Coward traps him just as completely.

“There is something quite wrong with how the world works,” Coward says, quiet and reminiscent of long evenings in high summer. “In how the poor are imprisoned for all the wrong reasons and the rich for all the right ones. In the politicians’ slight of hand, in the sordid immorality of the Commons, in the whole country’s pathetic moral apathy.”

Henry straightens his back, feeling opportunities bloom in the recess of his mind; the overwhelming necessity to prove himself to his obscure, indecipherable friend in a way he has never had to before with any living man. “What would you do?”

Coward’s eyes are sharp. “Rewrite it, from the bottom to the very top. Impress every inch of it with zeal, deference... fear. I despair at inequality, at the injustice unquenched by years of poverty and servitude under an ineffectual government – I would strip it bare, peel away the layers of corruption until we had something perfect and fresh by which to reform the _world_.” He has his audience captured with bated breath; he turns casually to the window, looks mournfully out at the grey scene. “But it can’t be so; I have no means to _make_ it so.”

Henry can scarcely breathe. “I do,” he whispers, and Coward’s smile glitters in the moonlight.

 

 

And so Henry pulls together his plan; finds the means draped elegantly around his fingertips, woven together with barely any resistance, as if it were already formed, already meant to be, hovering somewhere in the aether and simply waiting for him to catch up. He feels as if he walks in the footsteps of a predecessor; finds barely any quandary to solve. A sliver of doubt is transformed, quickly, into fanaticism; rather than walking behind an antecedent, a revelation occurs that it is by divine hand he is led through the myopic dark, that what he carries out is Right and Fair and Just by _God_.

And all the while, Coward watches him.

It is with him in mind that Henry works; it is with him in mind that Henry prays, schemes, toils and strives, and on the sparse occasion on which he is rewarded – by fleeting smile or something more – he thinks his soul might burst with the ache of it.

 

 

It is August, 1885, when Henry meets his father for the very first time. Coward leads him into the room, intensity and excitement in his composure, a certain wickedness in his eye, and bows reverently to its single occupant; but Henry knows Coward’s supplication, can sense the distaste and loathing in his countenance, imperceptible to the ignorant eye. He has an instant dislike of the man, to whom he sees no familial resemblance, and quickly realises he has neither the shrewdness nor ambition to make him political ally nor even an interesting friend.

“What did you think?” Coward inquires, rocked gently by the carriage juddering its way across the capital.

“I shall not regret having to kill him,” Henry replies, and Coward rewards him a slow and vicious smile; Henry realises that this was the correct answer to give, and feels a flush of complacency at his achievement.

 

 

It is September, 1889, and the world outside is dreadful and unforgiving to all but the casual observer. The rain falls in thick threads across London as Henry arrives on Coward’s doorstep to announce the final piece in place, their queen; the thread of the first girl’s life severed by his fingertips, her neck easily snapped within his hand, and only a matter of clicking time before Holmes is employed to hunt him.

Henry entices his friend with revelry and whiskey; has him shedding layers both material and metaphoric, until he stoops almost (but not quite, not ever) to the level of his subordinate. Henry, on a violent, hopeful whim presses forth and Coward yields, immerses himself in Henry’s eager debauchery and takes hold of the hand that curls around his wrist with easy salacity.

Coward will not have him speak of it, and Henry fears quietly he has done him some displeasure, despite all the information which would seem to prove otherwise. It occurs to him, somewhere, that Coward may not be as ineffable as he seems, and the thought is simply too terrifying to consider.

 

 

Earlier that night, they saw a man die; heard flesh crackle and scream; smelt the bittersweet rot of burning flesh. The chase is far from complete, and yet Henry already itches with the dawning of his victory, imagines with a rush of savage pride Holmes dead beneath his feet as Coward placidly observes. The inevitability of his triumph prickles intensely in the air, and Henry smiles to think of the look on Coward’s face as Henry hands to him the keys to the world.

 

 

It is November, 1890, and Henry’s body hangs loosely on a gibbet made of chains, high above old London town. Coward, eyes on its swinging form on the horizon, steps inside a black, gilded carriage and does not look back.


End file.
